Faculty Mentors

Kurt Organista, PhD

Professor
Department of Social Welfare
University of California Berkeley

Dr. Kurt Organista is a Professor of Social Welfare at the University of California Berkeley. As a

eading expert on social work practice within the Latino community, Dr. Organista’s research focuses on psychosocial problems within the Chicano and Latino communities, acculturation and adjustment of ethnic minorities to American societies, minority mental health, cognitive behavioral therapy, depression in Latinos and HIV prevention with Mexican migrant laborers/Latinos. He holds the Harry and Riva Specht Chair for Publicly Supported Social Services.

Dr. Organista’s book, HIV Prevention with Latinos: Theory, Research and Practice, is the first-ever collection of texts written by leading authorities on the topic of HIV prevention among diverse Latino populations. It attempts to respond to the diminishing returns of the behavioral model of HIV risk by deconstructing the many social ecological contexts of risk within the Latino experience. He is also served as the principal investigator for a National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse Alcoholism (NIAAA)-funded project that seeks to developing and test a structural-environmental model of HIV risk and prevention for migrant day laborers in San Francisco and Berkeley (2010 to 2015).

Selected Publications:

Organista, K. C., Jung, W., & Neilands, T. B. (2020). A Structural-Environmental Model of Alcohol and Substance-Related Sexual HIV Risk in Latino Migrant Day Laborers. AIDS and behavior, 24(11), 3176–3191. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-020-02876-4. PMID: 32306212.

Organista, K. C., & Ngo, S. (2019). Cultural and community resources protect Latino migrant day laborers from discrimination-related distress. Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology, 25(2), 232–241. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000211. PMID: 30010347.

Organista, K. C., Arreola, S. G., & Neilands, T. B. (2016). La desesperación in Latino migrant day laborers and its role in alcohol and substance-related sexual risk. SSM – population health, 2, 32–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2016.01.006. PMID: 29349126;PMCID: PMC5757762.